Thursday, December 31, 2015

With this, Age of Ravens hits 102 post for the year,
a hair under twice a week. That’s a little off because we had some gaps (explained below).
I did few reviews this year, but I managed to finally finish of my History of
Post-Apocalyptic RPGs. Finally. There were a lot of them. What really killed my
speed and productivity was a game-related injury.

In mid-February while prepping our Guards of Abashan
session I suddenly had a great idea for a set-piece. It would require some
new, cheap figures. On a deadline, I rushed out to the local shop. Just as I stepped from
the pavement to the street, I hit a patch of ice. I went down, blacked out from
the pain, dragged myself back to the house, blacked out again, called Sherri, and blacked out a little more as I went into shock. When I woke I pretty much shivered there
until she got home. I’d sprained my shoulder, twisted my neck, and generally
given myself a host of delightful pains. I couldn’t get in to a doctor
until the following Monday. In the end took a long time recovering, sleeping sitting up on the couch to keep the pain down. I still have a muscle tear in my left
arm that hasn’t fully healed. It twinges when I go to lift anything
serious.

And then a couple of weeks ago I got a sinus infection that’s
played havoc with my equilibrium. But let’s leave that delight off the table.

NEW RPGS AND BEYOND

The last couple of years I’ve managed stats for plays and
sessions. The fall put me off track and I never caught up. But here are the new
rpgs I remember playing or running:

Ashen Stars*

Atelier Auzumel

Atomic Robo Samurai

Belly of the Beast

Dresden Files Accelerated

Dungeon Crawl Classics

Edge of the Empire

Fate Dr. Who

Ghost Lines*

InSpectres

Into the Odd*

Itras By

Lady Blackbird

Monster of the Week 2e

Questlandia

Shadows of Esteren

The Clay That Woke*

The Goblin Game*

The Spy Game

The Warren

Torchbearer Aliens

Worlds in Peril

Wrath of the Autarch*

There may be others, but that’s off the top of
my head. Games marked with an * were short or small demo sessions.

What game most excited me? That’s a hard call, I want to say
Lady Blackbird, The Warren, or MoTW 2e. But I actually think it is Ghostlines.
I keep going back and imagining stories in that setting.

I also played a lot of boardgames, but again I didn’t track
anything. Nothing grabbed me like Imperial Settlers did in 2014. Pandemic
Legacy comes close and it’s probably my fav for the year. But I also dug Blood
Rage, Libertalia, and Panamax.

No new video game grabbed my attention. Instead I went back
to oldies: Suikoden, SSX, Persona, and the remarkably excellent and problematic
Dragon Quest series.

WHAT I RAN

I’d meant to run more one-shots, especially teaching
sessions for games. But injuries and illness put a kibosh on that. I ended up
bumping 2-3 events because of that. That makes me feel particularly shitty
because it gives me a rep as an unreliable GM. Who wants to
sign up for a VoiP that might flake out?

Ocean City Interface continued on strongly. They opened the
year coming out of the Neo Shonobi Vendetta portal and back to the real world.
After some investigation they flipped into the Masks of the Empire portal for
eight sessions. Then back in Ocean City they uncovered a great deal about the
larger plot. Finally they jumped into Sky Racers Unlimited, where we are now.
Saturday we’ll have the last (probably) session of that arc. (Action Cards)

Guards of Abashan rolled along. They fought some significant
foes and dug deeper into the threat facing the city. They had several major
successes. Last session they defeated one of the three “evil” sorcerers
threating reality. (Action Cards)

Legend of the Five Rings continued and we got through a
couple of seasons. But scheduling conflicts hit it hard. Last
session we reached a solid stopping point. I wrapped some major plot threads
and we made hard choices for the characters. We’ll return to that campaign in 2017 to figure out what happens a few years down the road. (Action
Cards)

Shadow of the Titan wrapped up just after mid-year. I got them up to level 8 which is where things get crazy. I ended
up really happy with the complete arc of this thing. I also had a better handle
on final sessions, so I took my time getting the players to talk about their characters' goals. The
players loved building the world with Microscope and they want to do that again
with our next campaign. (13th Age)

I also ran a short arc of our Dresden Files Accelerated playtest. I wasn’t happy with it overall, but I enjoyed the story I put together and
loved the characters. In particular I was bummed Thanksgiving scheduling
meant we didn’t get a final session to wrap things up. (DFAE)

I began an online 13th Age mini-campaign which I’m
enjoying hugely. It’s set in the Dragon Empire from the core book. We’ve only
gotten in three sessions of the eight or so I plan.

I played in a Worlds in Peril campaign, but only got to
participate in three sessions. That ended early which was too bad.

The Rolemaster campaign on Monday evenings continued on. We
hit level 4 (I think) and we finally got out of the Coral Road. Of course now
we have to invade a pseudo-Aztec city, so we’re probably going to die.

WHAT COMES THIS YEAR

With L5R finished, I’m going to run a long-promised Middle
Earth campaign for the Sunday group. We’re going to play exactly one year real
time. My niece will be joining us. Originally I planned to use Pugbuttah for
this, but that’s better fit for settings with looser canon. So I’ve
been working on an Action Cards Accelerated version. We should begin that in a
few weeks.

In OCI we’ll be moving on to the last of the four portals,
Assassins of the Golden Age. I need to work on the new card mock-ups and rules for that. Once we get through that one, we can begin to cycle through all
four (plus the “rw”) at a more rapid pace.

Guards of Abashan could wrap this year. If it does, I need
to think about what comes next. I have some ideas, but I’ll want to check with
the group about that.

I anticipate I’ll run Mutants & Masterminds online
again. The group wants to return to the same world, but we’re going to use
Microscope to figure out what’s happened in the time between campaigns. The
first game focused on “Year One” type characters. This one will be about “Legacy”
characters (ala sidekicks, New Mutants, Teen Titans, or Young Avengers).

I hope to run a longer-term campaign for our alternate
Monday group. I don’t know what yet.

And then there was Origins. It was amazing. The Euro-RPGGeek
crew arrived several days before the convention. I got to interact with the
amazing, amazing Jules, Jan, and Jonna in person. We got to play games and
listen to Jonna order her fellow criminals around in Payday 2. I had a dynamite
time and loved being able to host them. Then we went to Origins. Unfortunately
Sherri couldn’t go because of work projects. If she’d gone it would have been
even more amazing.

As it was, it pretty much rocked for me. I met and played
with a ton of amazing folks, some from RPG Geek and some not. I mean seriously
amazing. I can’t even begin to describe it. Plus I went to a Mongolian BBQ and,
despite it being the TGIFridays of these places, it remained delicious. Most of all I got to meet and hang out with Rich Rogers in person. I
don’t say this as an exaggeration: I think I learned more about RPGs and GMing
from him that weekend than anywhere else. Even his casual throwaway comments
have stuck with me. I’m still chewing on how to best eliminate filler words
from my descriptions.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Having finally (for the most part) overcome this ear/sinus
infection that eff’d up my balance and equilibrium, I’m playing catch up. A couple of weeks ago we dropped a new episode of Play on
Target, considering “sub-systems” in games. We should have another ep up this week or next. So what constitutes a sub-system?
We don’t offer a solid definition in the episode. In fact we cover and present
several concepts under that header: unusual rules for handling a narrow set of
actions; mechanics which don’t fit with the rest of the structures; or
non-standard props or add-ons. They break things away from the normal flow- at
least the normal flow I imagine when I think about the game.

Dice Games: Some
games have an added dice manipulation dimension. Fireborn has players physically shifting dice between aspects. Weapons of the Gods allows players to
move some dice into “The River” to be pulled into later rolls. Don’t Rest Your Head has an economy of
different dice. Marvel Heroic (and
other Cortex games) focuses on player choice and dice pool assembly. There’s an
element of hand management to those. And the mechanic add something to the play.
Building the pool feels significant in MHR. When you ask players to have
dice pools ready without description, the game goes flat.

Let’s Have a War!Mass Combats’ always been a weird
‘grail” system in games. There’s the theory that players want epic,
earth-shaking wars with their characters in command. D&D comes out of Chainmail and many have wanted to revive
that flavor. In the episode we mention mass combat “simulators”: Bushido, GURPS Horseclans & Conan, Legend
of the Five Rings, countless d20 supplements. They all offer ways to
quickly resolve big battles. Some went further, bringing full-fledged
miniatures systems to the table. Consider TSR’s unwieldy Battlesystem, Rolemaster’s War
Law, ICE’s Bladestorm, Deadlands’
Great Rail Wars, Fading Suns’ Noble Armada, Harn’s Battlelust. Few of these caught on and
even the brightest burned out quickly.

Reverse Engineering:
On the flip side, some miniatures games end up having a role-playing component.
Mechwarrior’s the first of these. We
played Battledroids (and then Battletech) with weirdly scaled Japanese
models as soon as it came out. When Mechwarrior
hit, one ADD GM jumped onto the bandwagon and ran a campaign. Yet though we
played that for a dozen sessions and we never saw actual Mech combat. In fact
we desperately avoided battle and solved all our missions with alternate
approaches. The repair and infrastructures costs for our mechs were too damn
high. We weren’t going to risk those. Heavy
Gear, Iron Kingdoms, and Through the Breach in this category.
These share a common problem: the need to keep sustain mechanics from the minis
games in the rpg.

+5 Troops of
Battling: While many games built new resolution approaches for mass combat,
others shifted to make military sub-systems more symmetrical. Exalted 2e added mass combat rules which
use the standard combat mechanics scaled up. Troops serve as equipment for the
leader of an army. Legends of Anglerre
also just shifts the scale to create the effect. Players can easily transition between
these mechanics, since they effectively resolve the same way. That comes at the
cost of uniqueness. The mechanics themselves don’t spotlight these events as out
of the ordinary.

Roster Roster: Are
games where players control a large number of characters RPGs with elaborate
sub-systems or just board games? I think the answer’s RPG for something troupe
like Ars Magica. But consider the
pseudo-roleplay of games like Necromunda,
Mordheim, Wreck Age, and Dead of Winter.
In each, your characters can grow and develop. Besides DoW, all these offer continuity-
the ability to play with the same evolving personalities over time. They can be
GMless or run with a judge.

Who was Whisper? I
mentioned L5R’s mass-combat a sub-system, but other early products from this
line contain interesting sub-systems. You could argue that the player-facing
rumor & history book of City of Lies
offered parallel play. It served as a kind of CYOA logic puzzle. Players could
work through that to develop hypothesis and guide at table play. On the other
hand Tomb of Iuchiban had a concrete
boardgame element. The final tomb uses a variable layout. The game includes room
tiles to lay out and rearrange for the players as they move through.

One-Use Magic Ink
Modules: I wonder if solo or GMless mechanics could be a sub-system. We’ve
seen solo dungeons (Deathtrap Equalizer),
magic-device modules (Blizzard Pass, Midnight
on Dagger Alley), and full CYOA books (Warlock
of Firetop Mountain). But a revised approach has been the strange CYOA,
cross-reference, board game play of Tales
of the Arabian Nights and Agents of
SMERSH. The former’s interesting for its rich background and absolute
devotion to randomness. It’s also competitive. Agents of SMERSH isn’t. Instead the group works together to uncover
plots and defeat foes. Mind you, the plots are loosely tied, but I could
imagine a more seeded version where early picks set the parameters for later
ones.

Community Building:
I really need to review Mutant: Year Zero.
While it comes out of an older game line, it embraces the modern. You can buy
reference cards for plots, mutations, and equipment. The game discusses using
these as randomizers. That’s a tangible mechanic and the cards look good. But
M:YZ also has a decent system covering community development. Players can take
actions and make choices about their community’s direction. It’s more
cooperative than Apocalypse World or
even the more recent post-apocalyptic game
Legacy.

Turn, Turn, Turn:
I especially love the concept of seasonal actions. Old games had downtime
tracking: thin rules for time between adventures. Think GURPS’ crazy career
tables and study forms. But games like Ars
Magica, Blood & Honor, and Reign have more explicit structures. The
Great Pendragon Campaign and The Darkening of Mirkwood offer rich,
multi-generational campaign sagas. Both assume a set timeline and history, with
the players responding to that. I recently wrapped out L5R campaign which used
a seasonal actionst. I found that sub-system takes careful planning. If you go
for a mechanical version, you have to consider resource costs, balance, and
time. I began with that approach., but later ditched it in favor of a narrative
dialogue. I didn’t want to have to engage with heavy resource tracking and
calculations. OOH If I’d seen Wrath of
the Autarch before I started, things might have been different.

That’ll Be 500,000
GP: I also love the idea of Crafting systems more than I like the execution.
Often you get high density to these mechanics (GURPS, Pathfinder). I’ve tried a
couple of times to come up with ways to handle the Atelier series of jrpgs. Craftings more than half of the game. I’m
still working that out. One of the best approaches I’ve seen recently has been Atomic Robo, though that’s called ‘brainstorming
there’. DFAE has another take on it: open and easily adapted that works. I’m
looking forward to the final version of that.

If you like RPG Gaming podcasts, I hope you'll check it out. We take a focused approach- tackling a single topic each episode. You can subscribe to the show on iTunes or follow the podcast's page at www.playontarget.com.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

A few weeks ago I posted my overview of Superhero RPGs released in 2014. Yesterday I spoke with Eloy Lasanta, author of AMP: Year One, an amazing game from that year. I wanted to ask him about how AMP fit with superhero rpgs in general, his comics influence, and the challenges he faced creating a game with a five-year plan. I had a great time with the interview, and I encourage everyone to check out his many, many projects!

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

My first impression was that steampunk had begun to wane in 2014, at least in rpgs. But looking through the list, that's not true. We saw several completely new systems and settings arrive, as well as elements used as an accent elsewhere. It's also the year that brought us the nadir of genres which annoy my wife: Steampunk Cthulhu. If there's a theme here, it might be the way steampunk and Victorian trappings have been blended. They're an important visual and fictional motif in some of these games, but aren't necessarily central. That means some of my picks for this list may be arguable.

If you’re a podcaster or blogger and want to talk with me
about these series, drop me a line. I got nominated for an ENnie last year, so
that’s something…maybe. If you’re a designer for games I’ve mentioned on any of
these lists and want to talk about your work and thoughts about the genre in
general, I’d love to have a chance to do that.

I focus mostly on core books here. I include Kickstarter
projects if they actually released in 2014. I give pdf-only releases their own
entry if they’re notable, of significant size, or come from a major publisher.
I’ve consolidated a ton of material into several ”Miscellaneous” items at the
end. I’m sure I missed some releases. If you spot them, leave me a note in the
comments.

This Finnish rpg appears steampunk in the loosest sense. Astraterra has a brightly colored sci-fi
look. But the setting does offer a steam-powered society. That’s within a post-apocalyptic
science fantasy where civilization has only just begun rediscovering this
technology. Astraterra’s another one I
missed on my Post-Apocalyptic list (too many
games!). In it characters use once-lost teleporters to explore their strange
and fallen ringworld. I place Astraterra on
the list because the authors themselves describe it as steampunk. The game's aimed
at younger players and has been modestly supported with a GM screen and character
pack. A Kickstarter supported an English translation slated for 2015, but that
has not yet released.

An Italian rpg focused on detective stories in Victorian England
with a dash of steampunk. Players take the role of agents of the Diogenes Club from
the Sherlock Holmes stories. The core game actually came out in 2013, so the
core book belongs on that list. But 2014 saw the release of two supplements. Brass Age America is a large volume offering
new mechanical and career options, as well as material on the United States in the
setting. On the other hand, I Doni di Mabon
has a lengthy set of adventures for Brass
Age set in London.

It took me a bit to piece together City Hall, which I first saw mentioned on GROG (Guide du Roliste Galactique).
The game's based on a French manga called City
Hall. In this world a strange phenomenon creates persons from written-word descriptions.
The more detailed and skillful the description, the more vivid, powerful, and independent
the creation. Fully realized fiction characters become real and dangerous. This
changes history, resulting in a steam-powered world which tries to ban the written-word.
There's a mix of authors and fictional characters in the stories. In the rpg players
take the role of Nostromo Agents, dealing with and hunting down these simulacra.
The art looks striking and they've done a nice job of tightly tying it to the manga.
City Hall has been supported with a couple of supplements. It reminds me a little
of the '06 game, Passages, where characters can enter into the worlds of
novels.

A Savage Worlds setting book, offering Mechadia, a realm from
the Suzerian setting. It gets its own
entry because it seems intended to stand on its own. While it could fit within a
Savage Suzerian campaign, the book approaches
it as an independent setting with new character options, extensive rules for inventions
& devices, a lengthy plot point campaign, and a series of smaller Savage Tales.
We've seen some other steampunk Savage World lines, and this complements them nicely-
adding a fantasy-hybrid version to the choices. The setting’s key conceit are fey
who connect themselves to the dreams of invention. That interaction drives the
creation of further steampunk developments. That's a cool idea and one worth adapting
for other games. Clockwork Dreams looks
solid and excellent, aside from the odd cover. There's a free 16-page primer availablefor the curious.

Angelus Morningstar has produced some of the most amazing online
work for Changeling the Lost. His Eidolon: The Electrodyne Opera is a project
which he's been developing for some time. It shows. The result is a huge, strikingly
illustrated, stand-alone rpg.

The introduction describes Eidolon as a “gaslamp fantasy
setting, set in the year 1900.” That year’s just a touchstone for the reader’s
thinking. The game takes place in a fantastic realm called Eidolon where powers
human and inhuman struggle for mastery. The names of things, people, and places
echo the real world, but this is clearly another realm. I can’t do justice to
the dream-like quality here, a world set in clockwork with different firmaments
and levels. It reminds me of Nobilis,
Houses of the Blooded, and Changeling the Dreaming.

It also contradicts my usual grousing about info dumping rpg readers. I’ve complained before (on this very list in fact) about
weighing the reader down with cosmology and history before making clear what
the game’s about. Because there isn’t a game here. Instead this is a deep,
rich, and seriously intense sourcebook for this setting.

It’s so rich, complicated, and elaborate I can’t even
imagine where I’d begin if I wanted to run it. A system exists, provided for
free if you buy the book. But fundamentally Eidolon’s so complex I don’t think
anyone but the author could run the setting. Or perhaps they could, but with
the soul stripped out or by putting in so much effort they’d be better off
crafting their own personal world.

But this is still a solid product which does what it sets
out to do: paint a world. Every page has interesting ideas. It’s worth picking
up for any fan of the fantastic and for GMs who like to build wonder into their
world. Eidolon’s a fun read, it hits on the kind of weird, uncanny, and fantastic
I like. YRMV.

Cthulhu by Gaslight first appeared in
'86, with a 3rd edition in 2012. But that’s always been the least supported of
the CoC settings. That’s why this is a huge German hardcover edition released by
Pegasus Spiele surprises me. It revises and expands on earlier versions, and adds
three new adventures. I would have simply placed this under revisions, but it's
such a striking product. It's also one that makes me wonder about the transition
from Call of Cthulhu 6th to 7th edition.
European editions of CoC products, especially German and French ones, have continually
broken new ground for the rpg. They've created amazing and beautiful products. But
will they follow Chaosium into the future and accept CoC 7th? What will that mean
for their backlist? Might we see a splintering of systems as we have with BRP?

A wuxia/steampunk hybrid using a smart adaptation of Fate
Accelerated. Jadepunk most feels like Legend of Korra. It has
that same mix of late 19th Century technology, magic, and martial arts. While the
game centers on Kausao City, it offers quick but rich world-building: sketching
out the nations and peoples. The city itself as a crossroads, bringing cultures
together from across the world. Black jade, the rarest of the magical jades, comes
from Kausao. Those jades power everything, and the colors have different properties.
Craftsmen carefully work these into wondrous blades, guns, and engines. Jadepunk sets the players as revolutionaries
within the city, fighting against corruption, tyranny, and banditry. It core
book is playable on its own. Overall it's a smart and easy system, supported with
several supplements. Highly recommended.

I read a post suggesting the term "Fantasy Heartbreaker"
has problems. Gamers use it too much and apply it to negate work. Some have suggested
they're a actually form of subversive art. I don't know. Sometimes I start reading
through a game and my stomach sinks. Maybe it’s the kitchen sink approach, the bizarre
order of information, or the desperate rebuilding of the wheel.

Anyway, I'm not sure why I mention that here.

Kromore offers a new
role-playing setting and system intended to cover multiple genres in a single world.
Players can take the role of heroes from fantasy, sci-fi, medieval, modern, and-
relevant to our interests- steampunk eras. Then they can "Explore a massive
setting over Kromore's 10,000 year timeline."
So in some ways that’s a non-generic, generic game; a strange mix of polar opposites.
The core book's about 350 pages and oddly doesn't open what the game’s about. Instead
it begins with lengthy 'what is an rpg,' storyteller advice, and example of combat
sections. That strangeness continues in character creation. The game offers distinct
profession picks for the 10K year history. (Sci-Priest, Ferrian Vanquisher, Knight
Agent). Kromore mixes simple and complex
approaches: small feat-like options, a tight skill list, a flow chart lifepath,
S.A.S.F.A.F.F. (Falling Damage), Height & Bullet Degradation and so on.

I have to give the game credit: it has ambition. The 10,000 year
history's covered in about a 100 pages, broken into several eras. Publisher RAEX
Games have supported the line modestly, releasing a screen, module, and loot cards. Kromore came about through a Kickstarter
that delivered in a timely fashion.Reviews for Kromore look mixed. I'm always a little cautious when I only see one
glowing review on IPR, Amazon, or DriveThru. I'd recommend some Google hunting and
checking the preview out. But if you're particularly looking for a steampunk game,
that's only a small slice of the whole here.

Cakebread & Walton released two linked steampunk products
in 2014. The first, OneDice Steampunk,
turned out to be the beginning of an extensive series of genre-book versions of their
new OneDice system. As you can imagine, it requires only a d6 for each player. OneDice Steampunk offers the rules, thirty
pages of setting & GM advice, plus three "skins" new worlds involving
for Machine Worlds, Lost Worlds, and Gothic Horrors. The tightness of the skill-based
system means that you don't need an additional core book (OneDice Universal).
The book’s light, with slightly cartoony line art. But if you're just dabbling in
steampunk and just want to get a game to the table, this might be it.

OneDice Abney Park's Airship Pirates
takes the OneDice system and applies it to the publisher's licensed line. Previously done with Victoriana's
Heresy engine, this stripped down version is still a hefty 172 pages. A little over
half of that's given to the setting and sample adventures. So who might be the audience?
Players of the previous version who want a light system or new gamers who didn't
invest in the earlier line and sourcebooks.

Note that this is another game which could appear on both
the Post-Apocalyptic and Steampunk lists.

Disclosure: I backed this Kickstarter. The Ministry Initiative offers a Fate-based adaptation of the Ministry
of Peculiar Occurrences series by Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris. They’re
novels of steampunk agents defending the Victorian Empire. The Ministry Initiative has complete rules, adapting the Fate to the
setting with a tailored skill list, new stunts, and vehicle mechanics. I've come
to appreciate how well Fate works for adapted material. Licensed games can swing
wildly between mechanics draped in a thin layer of setting and more sourcebook-y
versions, where the game’s an afterthought. Like Atomic Robo, The Ministry Initiative,
offers a complete product that feels like it grew up alongside the novels. The writing,
presentation, and mechanics click with the setting. Keep in mind I've never read
the novels, but I came away confident enough to run in this world. If you're hunting
for a steampunk-flavored Fate game, you should check this out. If you're just a
fan of the novels, you'll find this an excellent resource to adapt it to another
system.

11. Through the Breach

Through the Breach
is the long awaited RPG set in the Malifaux universe. My experience with Malifaux remains limited to trying to assemble
one of their plastic figures, discovering the back cover illo had been flipped,
and trying to pry it apart. Tiny pieces, fat fingers. Grumble, grumble. Anyway,
the first book for this The Fated Alamanac (sic), landed the year before. But 2014 saw the
release of the The Fate Master's Almanac and The Fatemaster's Kit (again, sic).* This line came out of a hugely
successful Kickstarter campaign ($250K).

So what's the deal with Malifaux
in general and Through the Breach in particular?

Malifaux appears to
be a Gothic Horror Steampunk Western Dimensional Rift world. Maybe like a cross
between Deadlands and Warmachine? Malifaux refers to both a weird decaying city and a parallel dimension.
Magical workings in the 18th Century resulted in a breach leading to this new, apparently
empty, realm. Soon explorers, prospectors, and settlers went through, beginning
a trade in "Soulstone" and magical power. Then the breach collapsed, reopening
a century later. The game takes place a few years after that with our world encountering
the transformed survivors. Several factions battle for control of Malifaux including
sorcerers, magical engineers, necromancers, monsters, and a weird orientalist hybrid
Asian faction. It's a bit of a kitchen sink setting with wizardry, non-humans, gunsligners,
steam-mecha, and wushu.

Through the Breach's
system parallels the miniatures game's mechanics (much as Iron Kingdoms does to Warmachine).
But apparently both games use playing cards rather than dice, an interesting twist.
Character creation actually begins with a tarot-like spread. There's a great article on that process here. Through the Breach doesn't look quick, but
I have a hard time judging the rule density from the review. But overall this seems
fairly crunchy. Maybe it isn’t that complex once you get the system, but it derives
from a miniatures system. That means TtB models actions and events with granularity.
If that's your bag and the setting concepts grabs you, consider checking it out.

*Note that they cleaned up these cover typos.

12. Victoriana

Victoriana stands as
one of the evergreen games of this genre, having gone through three distinct editions.
The latest from Cubicle 7 had some support, but that seems to have dropped off.
While the second edition had a host of striking sourcebooks, this one only saw two
in 2014 (and none in 2015). The first, Liber Magica, presents a sourcebook for magic in the setting (something we never saw
for 2e). It contains spells, rituals, and background for five forms of magic, notes
on item creation, and the history & personalities associated with five magical
societies. Liber Magica is mechanics-rich,
but also offers a ton of interesting setting ideas and concepts. That makes it useful
for GM looking to model or add depth to mystical arts in a Victorian setting.

The other release, The Concert in Flames, has a weak title. That obscures the volume’s
role as the Europe sourcebook for Victoriana.
Its 160 pages splits even between setting material and module. The first half details
the history and locales of continental Europe. There's a nice focus on the urban
centers of various nations. The second half presents a five-part adventure set on
the continent. Again the writing and presentation make this a useful resource for
GMs of Victoriana or similar games.

I don't know if I can do justice to this setting’s crazy complexity.
As I mentioned elsewhere I'd first assumed that this was the Malifaux RPG, since that comes from Wyrd
Miniatures. But no, this is a completely different thing. It can best be described
as a kitchen-sink fantasy setting. Unlike Kromore
above, this puts it all in at once. Lovecraftian elements, steam machines, battle
armor, British mythos, multiple new races, strange names for everything. Reading
the rules requires slogging through a massive history. It feels like an extended
campaign world run by a GM in love with their backstory. Wyrd also uses its own unique mechanics, the Elderune Multidice System. There's a free pdf version of the setting
and system book. That's worth reading (and looking at the character sheet) if you're
interested in the genre or elaborate setting designs.

Edara: A Steampunk Renaissance Revised
is a fantasy steampunk game. It has Renaissance elements, with a struggle between
science and faith. This edition’s revisions appear to be moderate: fixing the text,
correcting errata, and making the presentation full color

The Widening Gyre: A Savage Steampunk Setting
was a striking setting written for Hero system. The rich background presented a
full developed alternate history running from the mid-19th century through WW1.
That included supernatural elements in addition to the technological changes. This
version for Savage Worlds is worth checking
out.

15. Miscellaneous: Other
RPGs

Smaller smaller or pdf only games.

Aonir Roolipeli has a user summary on
RPG Geek I cannot hope to top. "Aonir
is a fantasy RPG created and published by Teemu Suontaka in 2014 as part of his
master's thesis on degree of business economics used as a case example of getting
from idea to product. In Aonir a fantasy
world is invaded by alien tzerads, which causes steampunk technology development
and appearance of mutated, green skinned orc race."

The Great Game in the middle of the 19th
Century, the discovery of ancient megaliths releases Aetheric Energy across the
world. Strikingly the rpg focuses on the struggle for these sources in Afghanistan.
While publisher released this preliminary version to elicit feedback, they have
not yet published anything further.

Romance in the Air is part of Evil Hat's
excellent monthly series of new settings for Fate Core and Accelerated.
It offers a drama set in an alternate fin de siècle Europe. Romance in the Air blends genre elements
into the story of a great floating manor travelling across Europe. If you want a
structure to explore social and romantic elements of this genre, pick this up. Highly
recommended.

Steam & Fog comes from Italy. It
presents a gothic-horror alt-history of the 19th Century. The Google-translate of
the publisher's page suggests it focuses on some of the ethical themes of steampunk
(?): cosmic nihilism, responsibility for actions, and class discrimination. The
core rules detail Paris in the period.

Wolsung: Steampulp
Fantasy still hasn't gotten much traction in its English translation. The Day Urda Sank,
a mini-campaign, remains the only other release in the line.

Pelgrane released two released series pitches for DramaSystem. Hold the Chain presents life in a flying dystopian steampunk city.
Iron Tsar falls
a little on the margins and might be more dieselpunk. In an alternate 1920's engineers
from the magical Imperial Russian Court battle zombies overwhelming the country.

Kronocalypse Prelude: We've Got a T. Rex
is part of a series of independent adventures involving time-travel and different
tech levels. Written for Savage Worlds,
this one has steampunk heroes trying to stop a prehistoric incursion at a technological
fair.

The Machine King is a rediscovered Call of Cthulhu scenario from the 1990's.
It has industrial technology run amok in a gaslit London.

Spur ins Dunkel an adventure for the
latest edition of the German Private Eye rpg. This one takes the investigators
from London to Vienna.

The second and third parts of the Wake the Dead adventures for Steamcraft landed. These link up but could probably be run independently.

A World Gone Mad serves as a teaser for
the still unreleased Victorious steampunk
rpg. It's written generically and so could be easily adapted to other games.

17. Miscellaneous: Sourcebooks

Supplements expanding existing lines.

The City of Faymouth a fantasy-steampunk
sandbox setting for Fate Core. DramaScape
released a companion poster map of the city.

Compendium der Curiositäten covers the capital of the Finsterland setting. It assembles website articles and new material
for this German RPG into a 212 page volume.

Die Venus is a massive resource covering Venus in the Space 1889 setting. It’s
unclear if we'll see a translation of this German-language edition.

Monsternomicon a revised and reworked
version of Privateer's classic Iron
Kingdoms bestiary. Keyed for use with the original IK as well as the more recent
IK Unleashed, it has great monsters and
is worth picking up.

Weird Science Compendium offers a short
guide to strange devices in the marginally steampunk Leagues of Adventure setting for Ubiquity.

EN publishing released a few important items for the Zeitgeist
setting, including the expanded editions of the Zeitgeist Campaign Guide and Player's Guide
(for both 4e and Pathfinder). As well Seas of Zeitgeist offered naval rules.